Course & Curriculum Design

Course design is a reasoned approach to developing a course that generally starts with defining tangible learning outcomes (LOs) for a given course. Once the LOs are identified, the next steps are to plan and closely align teaching and learning activities, determine what will count as acceptable evidence that learning has taken place, and design assessment tasks accordingly.

The process of curriculum development aims at identifying what faculty value for their students and how effectively the program enables students to achieve the knowledge and skills that faculty regard as highly valuable (Ward Griffin et al. 2013). In other words, curriculum development seeks to find out what knowledge, skills and other attributes we expect students to attain. Degree-level learning outcomes are useful in articulating these expectations, which can then be mapped against the sequence of courses that make a program.

Examples of Good Practice

Take a listen to this 12-minute video podcast in which Dr. Geneviève Maheux-Pelletier, an educational developer with the Teaching Commons, puts course design principles into practice in her Linguistics Applied to French course.

Course Design @ York

Course Design @ York is a series of workshops for course directors who would like to enhance an existing course, or create a new course design. The sessions provide you with through, creative and practical advice for developing your course. There are currently 5 workshops in the Course Design @ York course:

Course Design Boot Camp

Principles and Practices (of Course Design)

Activities, Assessment, & Evaluation

Inclusive Curriculum Design

Supporting Student’s Academic Literacies

These courses are offered several times per year. We can also offer specially scheduled or tailored workshops for groups of 6 or more.

The workshops are supported by a Moodle site containing resources and opportunities for interaction beyond the workshop.

Resources Internal to York

Curriculum Development & Research Skills from the York University Libraries provides information on why and how research skills can be integrated into your curriculum. Consider designing effective assignments and information literacies.

Copyright Information sessions from the York University Copyright Support Office provide Q & A sessions to ALL faculty and administrative staff to help identify and manage copyright in the classroom, course website, and research. Bring your course outlines and academic materials for review as the Copyright Modernization Act and fair dealing is referenced.

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Upcoming Events

The eLearning @ York course is a blended learning experience comprising two two-hour face-to-face sessions and two online sessions. Through these sessions, participants are encouraged to reflect on their experiences as a student of eLearning[...]

The Writing Circle offers dedicated, on-going writing opportunities for the purpose of making progress on a writing project, preferably but not limited to being focused on teaching and learning in higher education. It is structured[...]

The Teaching Commons is hosting its March Journal Club conversation on Thursday, March 29 at 1:30pm. Join us at the Teaching Commons for an informal discussion of The Effects of Attendance on Academic Performance: Panel Data[...]